Frail without you
by WolfAngel'JR
Summary: My take on why and how Christine chose Erik after all, some time after the film's ending. A rewrite of my E/C shipping fic from 2006. ALW-film/Susan Kay. One-shot.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own the The Phantom of the Opera or any of the characters but they belong to all their rightful owners. This is non-profit fanfiction. No copyright infringement intended.

**Genre:** Romance/Angst/Drama  
**Rating:** PG  
**Pairing:** E/C**  
Basing on:** ALW-film/Ssuan Kay**  
Chapters:** One-shot**  
The song:** Enigma's 'Gravity of Love'.

**Author's notes:**  
1. I originally wrote this in June 2006 under my old username, JudasKiss. This is a rewrite with grammatical corrections and many additions.  
2. Kay's story isn't literally referred to in this, but just want you to know that my Erik's history has nothing to do with the 2004 film's view of it but it was the one from Susan Kay's brilliant fanfiction novel.  
3. This is Patrick-Raoul, Emmy-Christine, and Gerik with more like the stage Phantom's deforemecy level.  
4. No, he doesn't live beneath the opera house anymore.

* * *

**Frail without you**

Nine months. Nine months of sunshine and happiness. Nine months of the world with no more night. Now she had begun to understand, she had never wanted that with all her heart. Once the beauty of the night had touched her soul, her heart, she could not really live without it. Once the music only he can make, had made her spirit soar... He had been so right, though not exactly knowing just why she could never be free, anymore.

She was quite happy with Raoul. That she could admit to anyone, anytime. She had a chance to lead a full life, better life than many other girls like she, but she just couldn't help feeling that something was so badly missing that it made her heart and soul ache. Deep inside, she felt empty. She couldn't feel _truly_ happy with Raoul. She felt she shared with Erik, something Raoul couldn't even begin to imagine, much less offer her. She kept that hidden. She knew that what she saw was only for the heart to see. Maybe only for her heart. And did she even really love Raoul in that way? She'd been filled with happiness to see him again for the first time since they'd been children feeling childlike love. Perhaps her feelings were more of nostalgia than romance. So many years had passed by. Years he hadn't been there, but Erik had been. That night, she had been too torn to really make up her mind. And too shocked for almost losing her childhood friend, her lover, to death in such a cruel way. So when finally given her choice, she had chosen safety, instead of love larger than life.

But time had the tendency to bring understanding. Sometimes she regretted her harsh words about her tears shed for his dark fate turning to tears of hate. Because this was a man. Not a monster. A man, who'd believed that she doesn't love him back because she'd taken his mask on stage, nonetheless loved her more than anything, and Raoul was about to take her away from him...and with her likely all his strength and dreams. That didn't justify blackmailing her with Raoul's life - those motives and reasons just made it understandable, even forgivable after he had redeemed himself in the end.

And he had been her loyal friend and comfort all those years. Her secret angel. And in the end, regardless of all the desperation and hatred, all the twisted emotion inside and the soul-destroying murders...he had listened to her. _'That haunted face, holds no horror for me now. It's in your soul where the true distortion lies.'_ He had truly heard her. All these months, she had wondered; what if Raoul hadn't come just then? Would she ever know?

All she knew about his life was that he'd been hiding from the world in a dark, cold place, the dungeons of his black despair, in darkness deep as hell - all because of his horrid face. A beautiful soul abandoned and damaged by hatred over something so insignificant. Whatever life he'd lead before, must have been unspeakable, to make him so unstable, bitter and desperate. Yet he had always shown compassion to her. And two kisses had made him cry. To let her go just so that she could be happy.

A mirror. How many times she had found herself staring into one, waiting. And now she felt as if there was a two-way mirror inside her mind, and all she had to do was open it once more. He would be there. She knew that it was still her choice. He wouldn't come after her. He'd believe she really had made up her mind. He believed she was happy. But she had never forgotten that torn face as it lighted up with hope, when she'd come back. She'd hated to break his heart by just meaning to give him the engagement ring as a token of her love.

'_Christine, I love you..._'

Those three words she needed to hear, Raoul said every day, and she knew he meant them from the bottom of his loving heart. But somehow they always sounded so... naked. The more she thought of it, the clearer she knew; Raoul's love was true. Erik's love was not only that but more passionate, and more genuine.

She still saw Erik's eyes, heard his voice. Those words sounding so sincere, uttered so passionately, full of pure love and they had sounded like a melody. That had been the moment she had forgiven him every mistake he had ever made, all the pain he had put her through. For there was so much love there only longing to be free.

She breathed deep, watching Raoul sleep. The man was still young and innocent just like she was supposed to be. A wave of warmth swept through her as she thought of these past months with him. And oh, how she loved him. But his love was now almost too safe. So pure, so warm... but still instead of feeling guided and guarded as she had hoped, she felt lost. She had grown to need the passion, to need the deep feeling, to feel like her life was heading somewhere.

And when he touched her, she didn't feel much anything. She missed the sensation, the shivers of electricity that Erik's touch on her skin sent through her body.

She had now everything she had wanted, everything everyone else could ever wish for but she had had a taste of something much more. The child inside her had indeed grown into a young woman, which she had feared back there. What about Raoul? She could still see more the childhood sweetheart in him than a future husband. Maybe it was for one reason because he seemed to think of her still as his Little Lotte...

A masked man sat there, at the thing that used to be his pipe organ. He was half lying on it, almost asleep. Momentarily he had felt like dying, many times during these months, but something had kept him around. Maybe it was the fact that the emptiness wasn't so empty for him anymore. After Christine, there were too many beautiful memories in his heart. Or maybe it was her kisses. The first time he had ever felt human love. There were days when the silence and loneliness drew him mad, but then he'd only watch the moon, knowing that somewhere his angel was watching it too. He sighed in his slumber, waking to the soft candle light. It must be night again. Even way down in the darkness of the dungeons he had learned to see when the world above was asleep.

It would once again be safe for him to get up and embrace the night that remained his only loyal friend.

She walked through the sleeping Paris streets, like she had done so many times before. She knew Raoul wasn't sleeping. That he knew where she had gone. She could see in his eyes that he still thought of it. That she had never kissed him like she had kissed the Phantom. Hoping, but knowing that she never would. But despite of that fact he had still been all hers. He had still loved her with all his heart and tried all his might to make her the happiest woman in the whole world. She wondered if Raoul really knew that he could never succeed in that.

'_Twisted every way... What answer can I give? Am I to risk my life to win the chance to live?_'

She sighed as she arrived to the ruins of Palais Garrier. What life she actually had thought she'd have without her angel?

She had always returned to Raoul but tonight the pull towards her old home was stronger. Her heart seemed to have decided it had been torn in two for long enough. Couldn't Raoul just somehow wake up in the morning and believe it was all just a dream? For this reality only hurt all the more, all three of them.

She looked up to the rooftop while a scene played in her mind. She thought she saw herself there and heard her wishes so long ago, so thoughtlessly uttered, not even knowing he had heard them.

"Please forgive me...I always believed in you..." she whispered to the moonlight shadow, feeling a tear run down her pale cheek.

And there, she did see a form on the roof, right next to Apollo's Lyre.

It was looking down. It was looking at her. She couldn't see it but she felt all too familiar sensation soothing her soul. She closed her eyes, just standing there in the silent snowfall. As she opened her eyes the form had disappeared. But somehow she felt it was getting closer.


End file.
